Freelance Medical Communications
Last week was busy again, with writing and editing. At 9:30pm on Friday I finally finished a long edit on an article for an ESL client – it was a good feeling to return it and relax with a glass of wine!
Now I’m just starting my Sunday with some coffee before I head out to the gym. It looks like we’ll be having another beautiful day here, so hopefully I’ll get outside later to enjoy the sunshine.
Hope you get to have an enjoyable Sunday too.
Courtesy of Tagxedo
There seem to be increasing initiatives across the country these days to encourage people to be healthy and keep fit. One in particular that focuses on solving the problem of childhood obesity, was the Let’s Move initiative, launched on February 10th, 2010 by First Lady Michelle Obama.
Currently almost one in three children is either overweight or obese, and it is thought that a third of children born from 2000 onwards will suffer from diabetes mellitus at some stage in the future. Healthcare costs resulting from obesity-related conditions currently cost around $147 billion annually, and this epidemic additionally affects the nation’s security since obesity is one of the most common reasons that disqualifies individuals from military service.
According to the CDC, numerous factors contribute to childhood obesity:
Certainly behavioral changes have dramatically impacted childhood obesity in recent decades. In the past 30 years or so, the rate of childhood obesity in this country has tripled. Children today live a completely different lifestyle to those who went before them a few decades ago. Current lifestyle changes comprise:
The Department of Defense serves more than 2000,000 children in its childcare facilities daily, and has been among the first to adopt the “Let’s Move” standards in an effort to promote healthy habits in military families.
The 5-Step Healthy Habit Checklist of Let’s Move advises:
So despite the doom and gloom of increased childhood obesity, the good news is that children can be helped to lead healthier lives, simply by instituting some lifestyle changes. To promote health, the Let’s Move initiative advocates institution of healthy eating habits and increased physical activity, by families, schools and communities. The CDC recommends at least one hour of exercise daily for children, to incorporate aerobic activity as well as muscle and bone strengthening activities. Overall, the initiative aims to provide useful information to families and communities to help them make healthier choices and subsequently put children on the path to a healthier future from as early an age as possible.
“The physical and emotional health of an entire generation, and the economic health and security of our nation are at stake. This isn’t the kind of problem that can be solved overnight, but with everyone working together, it can be solved. So let’s move.”
– First Lady Michelle Obama
Are you:
I always love finding new recipes to try out, & they score bonus points if they’re even vaguely healthy! Here are three tried & tested options that I thought I’d share with you this week:
Glorious Gluten-Free Blueberry Streusel Muffins
If you’re in the same position as me and have a full time job in addition to running a freelance business, you’ll know all about “not enough hours in the day”.
Even without my freelancing, my life is busy enough:
So trying to maintain some semblance of a life, while keeping up a freelance niche, is tricky at the best of times. Currently, the majority of my freelance work is done on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday evenings each week – with a splattering of work at other times, on an “as and when” basis, if time permits.
Typically I don’t do much freelance work at weekends – most of that time is spent with my boyfriend in NY. That involves me making the almost-6 hour drive there on Friday afternoon – I managed to rearrange my work week around a bit, thanks to my great boss. So I tend to work later each night to make up enough hours to allow me to leave early on Fridays, and come into work late on Mondays. As you can imagine, a 6 hour drive Monday morning doesn’t get me to work until around noon. I’ll work until about 8pm, then I get to drive 45 miles home – which is why I don’t do much freelancing on Mondays!
I do some of the usual things to carve out time for my freelancing:
One thing I’m quite passionate about in my life, is exercise. For me, it’s not just about keeping me fit, it’s about maintaining my mental health. A regular exercise regime just keeps me grounded. As you can imagine though, my chaotic calendar doesn’t necessarily allow me enough free time for much exercise midweek. I have, however, figured out a compromise:
Yes, if I really want the best of both worlds, occasionally I hit the gym with my:
I find this a great way to multitask – I have an Evernote app on my iPhone, so I can either add notes there, or write them in the notepad. Sometimes I’ll just brainstorm ideas for posts or potential clients. Other times I’ll be catching up on emails, or on Twitter. (I actually remember doing the same kind of thing many years ago while I was studying for my board specialty exam – the almost 24/7 studying for a few months before the exam left me like a zombie between studying & a full time job – but I was determined to find a way of fitting in exercise, so I’d take study notes to the gym!)
Naturally I don’t reach the aerobic levels that I experience when I’m just devoting the time to exercise – but it’s a happy medium. I get some moderate exercise, & that’s good enough for me.
Is it crazy? Yes, of course.
Do I want to be doing this forever? No, absolutely not!
But for now, it’s a crazy compromise that I’m willing to make!
What crazy things do you do by way of multitasking?
This past weekend I had an enjoyable experience in Ogdensburg, upstate NY at their annual Founder’s Day commemoration of the region’s French colonial history. They held a re-enactment of the French-Indian War, bringing the mid-18th century to life for a couple of days.
One of the events I attended there was a lecture on “18th Century Medicine”, which was enjoyable, not just because of its fascinating content, but because the lecturer was one of the re-enactors, complete with accompanying props, including an amputation saw…….
Things have certainly changed in medicine over the past few centuries. Back then, only men trained as doctors.
Men who trained to be doctors would typically use one of two routes:
And these doctors came in one of 3 flavors:
Women’s Work:
The role of women in the medical profession seemed to be mostly limited to midwifery and nursing. Although some complications of childbirth might be dealt with by a surgeon or physician, midwifery was typically the job of women.
Interestingly, nursing in the 18th century was considered the “lowest of the low” professions. Nurses tended to be prostitutes or criminals, and instead of healing their patients, they’d usually be found stealing their money, or providing “special comforts” to gentlemen patients…….a far cry from the pivotal role of nurses in medicine today!
So yes, thankfully medicine has changed dramatically over the centuries!
This week has actually been too busy for me – can’t believe I’m saying that! Hopefully things will be calmer next week! It’s been a very productive one though.
Courtesy of Tagxedo
With heat warnings and advisories in effect in most states at the moment, and especially spreading east right now, it’s time to take action and ensure that your pets are protected from heat stress.
SOME TIPS TO HELP KEEP YOUR PETS SAFE:
Indoors
General Tips
Heat stroke can be fatal, and animals can succumb to its effects of in less than 15 minutes. The good news, however, is that it is preventable. With a little forward thinking and by following the simple tips above, you can reduce the chances of your pet suffering the potentially fatal consequences of heat stroke.
What are you doing to keep yourself and your pet cool right now?
Every year, over 40 million people in the US suffer from anxiety disorder, and more than 20 million will experience some depressive illness.
Although anxiety is a natural reaction of the body to any risk, threat, or danger, if your worries become a recurring theme and prevent you from living a normal life, this could suggest an anxiety disorder.
Such disorders can lead to enormous financial costs for the economy, but emotional cost for affected patients is even more important and significant. Symptoms vary from one person to the next, but most will experience both physical and emotional problems, as well as illogical and heightened worries.
Regardless of the stimulus, anxiety attacks can be extremely damaging to a person’s well-being – social and work lives suffer, and one can easily enter a negative spiral with feelings of low self-worth. Such conditions are highly treatable, however, so help should always be sought from a professional – especially in severe circumstances.
Additionally there are numerous self-help methods that you can employ to try to break the cycle. So although such problems can be highly debilitating, the good news is that chronic worrying is a mental habit that can be broken – so don’t let it keep you up each night!
The latest edition of the New England Journal of Medicine describes the results of an interesting series of cases of respiratory symptoms in a group of soldiers returning from deployment to Iraq and Afghanistan.
Eighty soldiers at Fort Campbell, Kentucky, were referred for medical evaluation due to respiratory symptoms between 2004-2009. All were unable to meet US Army fitness standards upon return from duty in the Middle East, suffering exercise intolerance and failure to attain the fitness standard for the 2 mile run – despite having met it prior to deployment. They were otherwise apparently healthy.
Of the 80 soldiers evaluated, 49 of them underwent lung biopsy. Within the group that received biopsies, 38 soldiers were diagnosed with constrictive bronchiolitis – a condition that involves narrowing of the airways as a result of increased amounts of associated fibrous tissue and smooth muscle. Many of these biopsy sections also demonstrated the presence of foreign material in the airways – suggestive of some type of inhalational exposure.
The authors discussed the characteristics of these 38 soldiers with constrictive bronchiolitis:
Many of the soldiers had been deployed to Iraq in 2003, and discussed having been exposed to smoke from sulfur-mine fire, dust storms, and incinerated human waste. So although all had been exposed to something, there was no single exposure that linked them all. Additionally, the constrictive bronchiolitis was not limited just to these soldiers who had been exposed to something.
Image from NEJM July 2011; 365:222-230
Constrictive bronchiolitis, a rare finding in healthy adults, is most typically described in patients with rheumatologic diseases, or in organ transplant patients. It has additionally been associated with inhalational exposure to inorganic dust, and a variety of chemical compounds.
Respiratory problems have frequently been reported in soldiers returning from duty in the Middle East, and although a possible link with some kind of exposure has been suggested, the exact cause remains unknown. This study unveils a key issue – the fact that so many soldiers suffered this problem after deployment raises the question of not just what is causing the problem, but just how many soldiers actually could become affected with by this condition, since no single cause has been identified. The exact nature of the particulate, foreign material found in the airways at lung biopsy also remains unknown, and will require further studies for evaluation.
Importantly too, the soldiers apparently continued to have respiratory symptoms as the study was being followed. Additionally, by 2010, most suffered continued dyspnea after climbing a flight of stairs. Half of the soldiers had even left the Army as a result of disability.
King et al: “Constrictive Bronchiolitis in Soldiers Returning from Iraq and Afghanistan” NEJM 2011; 365:222-230.
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